He was a timid, shaped by forces beyond his control. How could he be otherwise, dwarfed by self-absorbed adults who scripted his every step? Their judgments loomed, dictating who he should become, what was expected of him. Was he not lucky to escape darker fates—to avoid losing himself entirely or rebelling in ways that might have broken him? He came close. What a fractured, fleeting childhood.
Even now, decades later, the scent of books from the British Council Library lingers. Rainy evenings, with their ceaseless downpours, offered a perfect excuse to delay returning home. Often the library was his refuge. James Leasor, Maurice Proctor, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and James Herriot spun tales that carried him far from his reality. Books on cricket, brimming with timeless photographs, whisked him to the pitches of Old Blighty, Australia, and the Caribbean. Later, he found solace in the Brontës and Dickens. Then came Bertrand Russell –the irresistible, perhaps fortuitously at the most opportune time – late adolescence- and mid-teen. The junior subscription cost just five rupees, yet the tyrants at home argued fiercely over whether he should have such liberty. What if he fell in with the wrong sort? They already suspected he had.
In fifth or sixth standard, Enid Blyton’s stories opened a new world. Her English and enchanting tales sparked reading, an urge for knowledge, and curiosity. The Secret Seven and The Famous Five captivated young readers, while older girls drifted toward Mallory Towers or the romantic allure of Barbara Cartland and Mills & Boon. Blyton’s books, though, were rarely on the library shelves—always borrowed. This scarcity fueled a desire not just to read them but to possess them, a fixation that consumed him.
Each day, Bhaskara Books, the shop on his school route, beckoned. Enid Blyton’s titles glowed from the shelves. Asking the despots at home for money was out of the question—why invite their disdain? A book at Rs 1.50 was a luxury, a frivolity. He should stick to schoolbooks—social studies—or his abysmal mathematics. Yet The Famous Five and The Secret Seven were irresistible. In the early 1970s, whispers of Naxalite ideas—taking from the haves what the have-nots needed—offered a perilous solution. So, he filched. From one of the despots, he pinched Rs 1.50 and, with a mix of pride and thrill, bought his first Famous Five. Like an addiction, Blyton’s world enveloped him. Again and again, each Rs 1.50 fueled another purchase. Soon, all 21 Famous Five and nine Secret Seven books were hidden in a secret corner of the house. He devoured them, pressing his face into their pages, inhaling the scent of fresh paper, lost in their magic.
But the fear of discovery gnawed at him that was a dire possibility. Each day, he opened the wooden box where they were concealed, touching the covers, smelling the pages, escaping to Blyton’s vivid English countryside. He yearned to belong there, far from his cold, oppressive world—a place more suffocating than a garrote.
Ill-gotten treasures, though, rarely endure. The books were discovered, their pristine pages betraying their newness. Questions mounted. How had he acquired such a collection? His excuses and alibis crumbled, and the despots demanded answers. The Great Dictator’s return loomed, promising an inquisition.
In desperation, he acted. One afternoon, he crept to the
terrace, books in hand, doused them with kerosene, and struck a match. Tears
burned his eyes—not from the billowing smoke—as the pages curled and blackened.
Each character seemed to sprout wings, escaping from the stifling place
-soaring in the dry afternoon breeze. Soon, only a handful of ash remained. No
funeral pyre could have wounded more deeply.
